loved! But it is not,
Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get?
Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted
source is a degradation. Power? But power is nothing in itself. It is
power to do good that is fine--that, and that only. What is it, then?
Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I
told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than
that.

LADY CHILTERN. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who
treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not
for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from
others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to
myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still. That
great inheritance throw not away--that tower of ivory do not destroy.
Robert, men can love what is beneath them--things unworthy, stained,
dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our
worship, we lose everything. Oh! don't kill my love for you, don't kill
that!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude!

LADY CHILTERN. I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their
lives--men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical
moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame--oh! don't
tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any
secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at once, that--

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That what?

LADY CHILTERN. [_Speaking very slowly_.] That our lives may drift
apart.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Drift apart?

LADY CHILTERN. That they may be entirely separate. It would be better
for us both.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you
might not know.

LADY CHILTERN. I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did
you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don't
let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won't you, to
Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous
scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back,
that is all!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Must I write and tell her that?

LADY CHILTERN. Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I might see her personally. It would be better.

LADY CHILTERN.